


Charlie's Town

by Northern_Lady



Series: You Can't Take The Sky [2]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Folk Hero, Guns, Trapped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9842771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Lady/pseuds/Northern_Lady
Summary: The crew goes to the lovely little town where Jayne's daughter is a folk hero.





	

Three days. The Captain said they could have some time off in a pretty little ocean village called Eastville. Just three days was all the time Inara had convinced him to spend there. It was a wealthy sort of place. A place where Simon and River and Inara could fit right in. They booked several rooms in a medium priced resort and were all set to exit the Serenity when Charlie spoke up. 

“Does this place we’re going have a firing range?” She asked as they walked down the ramp. 

“Eastville has a lot of fancy folks,” Mal said, “And I reckon even fancy folks like to have a place to shoot their fancy firearms.” 

“Eastville?” Charlie stopped walking having gone pale. “I can’t go to Eastville.” 

“Well Eastville is where we’re goin. It’s already been decided,” Mal said. “You’d best get used to it.” 

They followed a sandy path down to the beach side resort and Charlie all but hid behind Jayne the entire time. She unbraided her hair as they walked and messed up the locks as if to obscure her face. Once they reached the beach the group split up. Some planned to spend the day at the beach, River and Simon wanted to see a famous library that was part of the village.

“Might be that I’d like to try playing a game of golf,” Mal said. 

“I played golf once,” Badger said. “You have to have special clothes. You won’t look right if you go in dressed like that.” 

“I never cared much about looking right,” Mal said, “But maybe that firing range Charlie mentioned isn’t such a bad idea. 

Charlie continued acting skittish all day. She kept her face hidden and tried not to look at any adults. As they were leaving the firing range she only got worse. There was a golf course in the distance and a older man was just crossing their path leaving the golf course. The man was followed by a teen boy who carried his golf clubs among other bags of things. Charlie caught sight of the older man and shoved Badger aside to hide behind Jayne. 

“What the..?” Badger began but by then the older man had stopped walking. He had noticed Charlie in spite of her attempts to hide.

“You there! Girl!” The man said. He carried himself and spoke like he was someone important. “Come out of there!” 

“Nope. I can’t.” She said, still hidden behind Jayne she had grabbed hold of his arm. Her hands were shaking. 

Jayne didn’t move but he became tense at whatever was going on. 

“I have the authority to have all your little friends arrested,” The man said. “ So I suggest you come out of there.” 

Charlie started to move but Jayne didn’t let her, he pushed her back to stay behind him. “What you want with her?” Jayne said. 

“She belongs in the work camps. She’s a murderer. She killed my son!” 

“Charlie ain’t no murderer,” Jayne argued. “Besides, looks like we got more guns than you do right now.” 

In an instant, the guns of Mal, Zoe, Badger, and Jayne, were turned on the strange rich man. 

“Clearly you don’t know who I am,” The man said, unfazed. “And you don’t know about the rules in this town. If you fire so much as a single shot outside of the firing range, or if a single drop of blood hits the ground, drones will find you and hunt you down. They will shoot you with tranquilizers and you will join the work camps along with everyone else who breaks the rules. I am Lord Mayor here so the penalty for harming me is double that of harming anyone else. So put down your guns, now!” 

No one in the group moved. They didn’t know what the next move even was. It was the teen boy who had been carrying the golf clubs that made the moved. He dropped the bags to the ground and from behind, he threw the strap of one bag over the Mayor’s head and pulled tight, effectively beginning to strangle him. Jayne and Mal stepped forward and tied the Lord Mayor up while Zoe convinced the boy not to kill him. 

“We need to go,” Mal said and they took off after him towards the beach to gather the others. They didn’t make it that far. They heard the drones before they ever saw them. 

“This way!” The teen boy shouted at them. He had fled the scene right along with them. He was headed for what looked like a church. “The drones can’t touch us in the church. That’s the rule.” 

“Yes, but we’ll be trapped! How will we get out?” Mal asked hurriedly. 

“There are tunnels!” Charlie told them. “I’ve been there, he’s telling the truth!” 

They made it to the church just as the drones came into sight. Mal shut the doors while the rest of the group caught their breath. He turned and found that Charlie had stopped to hug the boy who had saved her from the Lord Mayor. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Garret.” She said as she pulled away from him. “Anna told me you were dead.” 

“Nah, she just left me here to rot after the last job went bad,” Garret said. 

“Let me get this straight?” Mal said, “You two worked a job together in this here town. Job went bad. Mayor’s son got killed. Charlie got away and Garret here didn’t?” 

“Mostly yes,” Charlie agreed. 

Badger and Zoe were checking the windows. “I count five Captain,” Zoe said. 

“Alright, where’s this tunnel you told us about?” Mal asked. 

“We can’t go yet,” Garret said. “There’s three places the tunnels comes out. They’ll try and wait for us there. We gotta wait til dark.” 

“How many will be waiting?” Jayne asked. 

“I don’t know. It will be different this time without a distraction to keep the drones and the deputies busy.” Charlie said. “The church is just supposed to be a place that injured criminals can go to die. They don’t actually let people escape through the tunnels. They just like to pretend there is honor in letting someone repent to God afore they die.” 

“So basically this is a death trap?” Badger asked, not impressed with what he had just heard. “We should’ve gone back to the ship and not to some place that’s impossible to get out.” 

“It’s not impossible,” Garret said. “Charlie got out.” 

“Then I reckon you’d best tell us exactly how she did that,” Mal said. “Or it sounds like we ain’t making it out of here anytime soon. Start at the beginning.” 

“It wasn’t the Lord Mayor we were robbing,” Charlie began. “Weren’t his son neither. It was the mother of the woman his son was promised to marry. Her name was Gretl Langford. She was richer than anyone in this town. Her daughter Katherine Langford was all set to marry Kerry Mitchell, Lord Mayor Mitchell’s son. We saw him a few times after we convinced Gretl to help us poor orphans. He came by the mansion to visit Katherine. He was a scary creepy sort of man. Three times, Garret distracted him from what he wanted to do to me. The fourth time Gretl had sent Garret out to the garden to fetch some flowers to decorate her dining table. I was alone with Kerry while he took tea and waited for Katherine to come downstairs and see him. I didn’t want to be alone with him but he was between me and the door. I kept trying to make excuses to get out but he wasn’t having any of that. When I tried to just walk out he grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap. I panicked. I grabbed a butter knife off the tea table and stabbed him through the eye.” 

“Good for you,” Jayne said with a nod. 

“I almost made it out of the house before the drones came. I knew about the church and that it was a place to hide so I went there. I hoped that Anna would come for me or maybe even Garret. I explored the tunnels found that the ways out were blocked with deputies and drones. I waited for three days. I thought I might starve with only communion bread and wine for food. And then the riot started. Turns out people in this town hated Kerry Mitchell an awful lot. He’d hurt other girls my age and lots of parents wanted him dead. When they found out the Lord Mayor had me trapped in a church for defending myself...well they weren’t too happy about that. The riot gave me a chance to escape.” 

“Well then, seems to me we just need to let folks in this town who exactly is hiding out in this here church.” Mal said. 

“It’s too late for that,” The door to the church was flung open. It was Mayor Mitchell with a gun in his hand. “There will be no rioting this time. All there will be are some fugitives who died in the tunnels trying to escape. Now see that door over there behind the pulpit? Open it, and get going.”


End file.
